A portion of the disclosure of this patent document contains material which is subject to copyright protection. The copyright owner has no objection to the facsimile reproduction by anyone of the patent document or the patent disclosure as it appears in the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office patent file or records, but otherwise reserves all copyright rights whatsoever.
1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to user interfaces for computing devices and, more specifically, to methods and systems providing consistent user interaction with a user interface of a wireless portal.
2. Description of the Related Art
The Internet is a rapidly growing communication network of interconnected computers and computer networks around the world. Together, these millions of connected computers form a repository of multimedia information that is readily accessible by any of the connected computers from anywhere at any time. To facilitate the navigation of this repository, a number of Internet access providers offer portals to the World Wide Web for users.
In a general sense, a xe2x80x9cportalxe2x80x9d is a door or entrance, especially a grand or imposing one. In the context of the present invention, portal is a relatively new term for a World Wide Web site that is or proposes to be a major starting site for users when they get connected to the World Wide Web, or that users tend to visit as an anchor site. Such a portal site is typically represented as a page that contains links to numerous other sites, with the links being organized according to subject matter or the type of services offered at those sites. With the commercial success of such search engines that have transformed into portals such as Yahoo! (www.yahoo.com) and Excite (www.excite.com), it has become desirable, both from the point of view of the companies operating the portals and the ultimate end-users, to establish such Internet portals.
In order to provide mobility and portable access to the World Wide Web, interactive two-way communication mobile devices have been introduced that are capable of communicating, via wireless data networks, with the Internet. As an example, see U.S. Pat. No. 5,809,415, which is assigned to the assignee of the present invention, and hereby incorporated by reference herein. The interactive two-way communication mobile devices include two-way pagers, cellular phones, palm-sized computing devices and personal digital assistant (PDA) devices, and are among the fastest emerging communication devices. Such devices enable users to receive, collect, analyze, review and disseminate information as they travel or move about.
In a similar manner to the portals that have been designed to assist desktop computer users to navigate on the Internet, efforts have been commenced to provide portals designed specifically for users of mobile devices. For example, wireless or portable portals offered by AirFlash.com, Inc. (see www.airflash.com) and Saraide, Inc. (see www.saraide.com) are designed for access by users of mobile devices.
However, a user""s navigation experience on a display screen of a mobile device and through a typical portal viewed on a computer screen are conventionally very different. This is primarily because of the substantial differences between the user interfaces and menu structures of the two types of devices. In many cases, it is not at all intuitive how the links and organization of those links into menus in one environment are related to the presentation of those links and menus in the other environment. This can cause the user to be confused regarding how they should navigate through the menu structure to get to a desired link on one device based on their familiarity with the navigation process on the other device. Thus, there is therefore a need for techniques that provide users with a similar navigation experience on both mobile devices and computers (e.g., desktop computers).
Broadly speaking, the invention relates to techniques to facilitate participation of mobile devices in accessing resources over a data network. The data network can be wired, wireless or some combination thereof. In one aspect of the invention a mobile navigation metaphor is provided to yield similar navigation experiences on both mobile devices and personal computers. In another aspect of the invention, a central content server is able to return requested content to requesters in a format suitable for their device.
The invention can be implemented in numerous ways including, as a system, apparatus, method and computer readable medium. Several embodiments of the invention are discussed below.
As a method for producing a navigation aid on a web page, one embodiment of the invention includes the acts of: receiving a request for the web page from a requestor; determining device characteristics of a mobile device used by the requestor; retrieving menu information based on the device characteristics of the mobile device used by the requester; producing the navigation aid based on the menu information, the navigation aid being in a format suitable for the mobile device; and forwarding the web page including the navigation aid to the requester.
As a method for producing a navigation aid on a web page, another embodiment of the invention includes the acts of: receiving a request for the web page from a requestor; determining identity of the requester; determining device characteristics of a mobile device used by the requester; retrieving menu information associated with the identity of the requestor; producing the navigation aid based on the menu information and the device characteristics of the mobile device, the navigation aid being in a format suitable for the mobile device; and forwarding the web page including the navigation aid to the requester.
As a method for providing a mobile navigation metaphor in a portal for a mobile device having a display screen, one embodiment of the invention includes the acts of: providing an image representation resembling the display screen of the mobile device but being displayed on a display screen of a personal computer, the image representation comprising contents that can be similarly displayed on the display screen of the mobile device; and generating an updated image representation whenever the contents are updated.
As a computer readable medium including computer program code for producing a navigation aid on a web page, one embodiment of the invention includes: computer program code for receiving a request for the web page from a requestor; computer program code for determining device characteristics of a mobile device used by with the requester; computer program code for retrieving menu information based on the device characteristics; computer program code for producing the navigation aid based on the menu information, the navigation aid being in a format suitable for the mobile device; and computer program code for forwarding the web page including the navigation aid to the requestor.
As a computer readable medium including computer program code for producing a navigation aid on a web page, another embodiment of the invention includes: computer program code for receiving a request for the web page from a requester; computer program code for determining identity of the requester; computer program code for determining device characteristics of a mobile device used by the requester; computer program code for retrieving menu information associated with the identity of the requester; computer program code for producing the navigation aid based on the menu information and the device characteristics, the navigation aid including a plurality of links to available services, and the navigation aid being in a format suitable for the mobile device; and computer program code for forwarding the web page including the navigation aid to the requestor.
The advantages of the invention are numerous. Different embodiments or implementations may have one or more of the following advantages. One advantage of the invention is that a similar navigation experience can be had for users of both mobile devices and personal computers. Another advantage of the invention is that servers can distinguish between requesting device types (e.g., mobile device vs. personal computer) so that the returned content is suitable for the requesting device type.